A Baby Shower and My First Corner to Corner Blanket

We went to Dallas this past weekend for my sister's baby shower.  She's having her first girl and everything was pink, pink, pink!  The girls and I went to the shower while the boys went to my Uncle Frank's house.

My mom decorated her wrapped present.

My sister and her highschool friend, pregnant with girls at the same time

The 'S' is for Savanna, made by the hostess on the right

My sister and mom

I made my sister's baby, Savanna, a crocheted corner to corner blanket.  It was my first ever for this design, and halfway through I ran into a problem that no one was able to help me with.  So I ended up making two halves and "sewing" them together.  Then I added a light pink scalloped border.  I am happy with how it turned out.  I hope it is well loved!

After the shower, we headed over to meet up with ll the men and boys at Uncle Frank's for a relaxing dinner.  Bobby and my cousin's son became good friends while we were here.

Two Special Dates

Brian and I got to go to a local Octoberfest together one night after we fed the kids and got them set up for the girls to babysit.  We haven't had as much time for dates since the girls are in school and don't have as much time to babysit for us.  Brian dressed in his Lederhosen and I chose my most Dirndl-like dress to match.  It fooled several people who asked where we got our clothes.  

My other date was later in the week, when Judah finally finished his 100 Easy Lesson book.  I say finally because he lost his motivation somewhere along the way or he would've finished long before.  We had to start halving the lessons because he wasn't as focused.  I took him after dinner to Creamistry.  He got cotton candy with rainbow sprinkles and he loved it.  I got many hugs and thank you's.  We colored a picture together while we were there too.  He read a bunch of the words from the menu.  When he first got his ice cream, he carefully scooped up a bite and offered it to me.  I refused the first bite and told him that was sweet, but he should have the first bite!  He sure earned it!

Walking to our car, e walked right past his door and started to open the front door.  Then he realized his mistake and laughed at himself as he backed up to get back to his door where he bumped into the curb and sat/fell in the grass.  He is so silly and reminds me of Genevieve all the time.

Now on to reading aloud to me his 100 books to earn a date with Dad!

Drawing Lessons with the Boys

Isaac is taking a drawing class at our Friday co-op, but, as you may know, I love art and really desire for all my children to have a love for art.  All of them seem to be naturally inclined towards it.  Isaac has in the past had trouble staying calm when doing a drawing lesson with me, but he is all about watching Mark Kistler and loves his art class.  I had wrongly assumed that he had gotten over this problem due to all his success and enthusiasm for these other teachers/art projects.  We all decided to ditch Morning Time one day in exchange for an afternoon (AKA during Bobby's naptime) drawing lesson.  I picked a picture of a Macaw online and started us all out drawing line by line instruction.  Even with helping Judah with some dots for guidelines, Isaac was saying I was going too fast.  Drew was keeping up and so I kind of kept doing the next step before Isaac was totally ready.  In hindsight, this may have been the problem.  Isaac moves at a slower pace and it is sometimes hard for me to wait on him.  Ah, patience!  That virtue doth escape me!

Anyway, it soon dissolved into a teary lesson for him and eventually, I told him to take a break and work on it again another day while I finished up with the two younger boys.  Isaac did stop working on his and left it unfinished for a few days when he decided to return to it on his own and finish it up nicely.  He thought his bird was fatter than it was supposed to be initially, but when he came back to it he said it didn't look so off.  I told him repeatedly that it was looking correct to me, but he was unable to really listen because he was too upset.  I;m still trying to figure out exactly what the problem is, but I'll try slowing down next time if I can.  It may just be perfectionism rearing it's ugly head within him, and that would just take practice for him to learn how to handle it within himself.

Drew and Judah enjoyed it and keep asking when the next art lesson will be.  Judah has requested that we draw a Ninja Turtle and I think that would be a fun drawing, not to mention easier than a real Macaw.

Drew's Macaw, age 7

Judah's Macaw, age 5

Isaac's incomplete work at the end of our lesson

Isaac's finished product, age 10

Mine is unfinished because naptime ended and the boys were already done.  I'll have to finish it later, maybe while I am practicing my patience during the next art lesson. :)

My Tea and Coffee Nook

I've been working on this idea since before we moved in and I finally got it all pulled together.  I found the sign, "But first, Coffee" on sale at Hobby Lobby and bonus that it holds some of my mugs.  I hand-made the tea and coffee signs out of white and black beans.  I drew the pictures and inserted them into the frame.  I glued the beans directly onto the glass with Gorilla Glue.  It was harder than it looked to do the words, but I was able to fix my one mistake so it looks okay.

Now for my laundry wall!

My Pirate

Judah's surgery day for the removal of his stye/chalazean finally arrived.  The doctor told us that he had to keep the patch on his eye for one hour after we went home, and Judah came up with an idea.  He wanted to wear his pirate shirt that day so he could be a pirate which I thought was clever and precious, but I'm biased.

He was very groggy all day.  He wasn't at all after the hernia surgery, so this was surprising.

The night before the surgery I realize I had no plan for Bobby that day.  I was going to leave Drew and Isaac at home, Brian was taking the girls to school, but what about Bob?  Brian convinced me to just take him and hope that it wasn't a problem.  In Germany it was always stated before that you couldn't bring children if you wanted to be able to go into the pre-op or the post-op rooms.  Since they said nothing about it, we figured we'd just try it.  They had no problem with it as it turns out, but it was a really early morning and a lot of time to keep him occupied.

I was up at 4:15am and we were out the door at 4:50am.  The surgery didn't start until 7:30am.  We played cards, read stories, and colored while waiting for the surgery to begin in between answering questions and signing consent forms.  When it was time to take him back, he got all clingy and scared for about a minute.  Then the nurse told him he could walk back or ride in the wheeled bed and help her find the rainbow, and he was done being scared.  Like a flip was switched and it was showtime.

The scab is pretty hard to resist pulling it off as it appears at this point to be mostly attached to his eye lashes, but I shall refrain.  Doctor's orders, and all that.  I figure in this house it's only a matter of time.

Bobby ate some breakfast and played quietly at my feet during the surgery waiting period while I read my novel.  In Post-op, they put me in a recliner and let me hold him.  I read them a longer picture book that I had saved while both boys got popcycles.  They took out the IV and we were on our way.  He's done great with recovery and never once accepted pain medication when I offered.  He can be a tough one.

Random cuteness here from the dentist the day before the surgery.

Learning Up a Storm

This video is Judah after one week of learning the beginning of our timeline.  The first time I tried to take the video, I didn't push record right and missed the whole thing.  That time, Judah had hesitated briefly and Bobby from his car play behind said the next one for him.  I love that benefit of homeschooling, the learning by just being in the room.

Field Trip: San Antonio River Authority (SARA)

This was a half day field trip to here from SARA employees about how to keep the river clean and the wildlife in and around it.  They split into two groups, 2nd grade and below being in the little kid group.  This meant that Drew, Judah, and Bob were in that group while Isaac went to the other group.  I, obviously, had to stay with the little guys.

Miss Minna was our "tour guide" and she is from India.  She grew to love animals and the environment when she was a child in India and her father was in charge of protecting the tiger population.  She also explained to the moms about the park we were in and how it was built to be self-sustaining, down to the gazebo roof funneling rain water into their underground tank to use to water the plants with in dryer times.  They chose all native plants for the park so they would be used to a dry, hot climate.  I thought all that was very interesting.

The part I wasn't a fan of was her delivery of the "protect the river quality" message.  The message is a good one, but the way she went about it, I was really wondering if some of the little ones were going to start crying.  She had a fake fish floating in a fish bowl and had all kinds of cups filled with various liquids and solids sitting nearby.  The fish was named Freddy the Catfish and "talked."  We were to imagine that Freddy was traveling down the river in our story.  First someone cuts down all the shady trees and bark and dirt get washed into the river (dumped into the fish bowl for demonstration.)  Freddy is hot and sad now.  Then a cow from a farm leaves Freddy some "presents" and they get bacteria into the river making Freddy even sadder.  The story continues with green chemicals from a golf course, oil from a bad daddy that poured it down the storm drain, and trash blowing in from a park.  Pour Freddy is getting sadder and now having a hard time breathing with all the oil caked on his gills.  In this dramatized story, Freddy's fish bowl looks like a cesspool now and he's crying and gasping for air.  It was a little much is all I'm saying.

The walk to and down the river was fun because Miss Minna had crazy eyesight and knowledge about the species of everything from butterflies to hummingbirds to plants.  Mid sentence, she'd stop and say, "Look at that long tailed butterfly!" and it would have flitted across her peripheral vision in the distance.  Pretty impressive.

We had to leave afterwards and miss the picnic lunch because Hannah got sick and the school called me to come get her.  We were clear across town, so we had to get going.

Wrapping it up and getting back on track

I think I've caught up on all the big stuff.  Here's my compilation of extra pictures from the last two months.  The latest big news is that Genevieve is going to get braces and Isaac is going to have surgery on his ear drum.  

Poppy's dog and Genevieve made friends

This was from when we had no furniture yet.  The boys had picnics on the back porch.

Our Community Pool

Football season begins.

Recovering from the beach

 Now let's see if I can keep up with my blog this time.  I'm missing all the adorable small things on here because I don't remember them a month later. 

The Rest of the Beach Pictures

The previously mentioned shark

Bobby's checking out one of the hermit crabs.